Getting Ready for the Test: The Impact of School Restructuring on High School English Teachers

As debates about how to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) continue, educational stakeholders need to consider the impact that No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) accountability policies put on teachers working in low performing schools. Specifically, schools that annually struggle to achieve adequate yearly progress based on student test scores are narrowing the curriculum they offer students down to only teaching testable skills (Crocco & Costigan, 2007). As such, students who attended a school that taught them a narrowed curriculum only learned how to take high stakes tests and not how to compete in the 21st century world (Schoen & Fusarelli, 2007). B ecause of the pressure from high stakes tests, I wanted to understand how teachers who taught an NCLB tested subject at a low performing school were impacted by these accountability policies. In this study, I investigated how high school English teachers working in an urban high school experienced NCLB’s school restructuring policies. To conduct my study, I identified a low performing high school that was required to restructure according to NCLB. I then interviewed six of the school’s English teachers and the assistant principal, who was selected to lead the school’s restructuring. After analyzing my collected interview data, I created experience-based narratives for each of my participants. I temporally presented the narratives because teachers who taught at the school before and during its early stages of restructuring had a different experience than teachers who taught during the later stages of the school’s restructuring. My findings confirmed previously conducted research that detailed how NCLB’s accountability policies resulted in the narrowing of the curriculum and English teachers being viewed as solely responsible for students’ writing abilities (Anagnostopoulos & Rutledge, 2007; Darling-Hammond, 2007; Smith & Kovacs, 2011). Moreover, I identified six different ways my participants were impacted by the school’s restructuring and created a term for each. The terms I developed include turnaround, producing results, threats, student behavior, top-down decision making, and sustained and unsustained reforms efforts. I then closed by discussing each term and how it relates back to my participants’ experiences

To Fork or Not to Fork: Fork Motivations in SourceForge Projects

A project fork occurs when software developers take a copy of source code from one software package and use it to begin an independent development work that is maintained separately from its origin. Although forking in open source software does not require the permission of the original authors, the new version, nevertheless, competes for the attention of the same developers that have worked on the original version. The motivations developers have for performing forks are many, but in general they have received little attention. In this paper, we present the results of a study of forks performed in SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/) and list the developers’ motivations for their actions. The main motivation, seen in close to half of the cases of forking, was content modification; either adding content to the original program or focusing the content to the needs of a specific segment of users. In a quarter of the cases the motivation was technical modification; either porting the program to new hardware or software, or improving the original

Sociology 101 Introduction to Sociology Syllabus Spring 2019

This is a sample syllabus for Sociology 101 submitted as part of the Global Studies Initiatives in Social Sciences Grant at Parkland College for the 2018-2019 academic year. Highlights indicate changes and additions made that incorporate global studies into the curriculum

Influences on innovation : extrapolations to biomedical technology

Published in Roberts, Edward Baer...et al. Biomedical Innovation (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981).Bibliography: p. 21-23.by Edward B. Roberts

Using normalisation process theory to understand barriers and facilitators to implementing mindfulness-based stress reduction for people with multiple sclerosis

Objectives: To study barriers and facilitators to implementation of mindfulness-based stress reduction for people with multiple sclerosis. Methods: Qualitative interviews were used to explore barriers and facilitators to implementation of mindfulness-based stress reduction, including 33 people with multiple sclerosis, 6 multiple sclerosis clinicians and 2 course instructors. Normalisation process theory provided the underpinning conceptual framework. Data were analysed deductively using normalisation process theory constructs (coherence, cognitive participation, collective action and reflexive monitoring). Results: Key barriers included mismatched stakeholder expectations, lack of knowledge about mindfulness-based stress reduction, high levels of comorbidity and disability and skepticism about embedding mindfulness-based stress reduction in routine multiple sclerosis care. Facilitators to implementation included introducing a pre-course orientation session; adaptations to mindfulness-based stress reduction to accommodate comorbidity and disability and participants suggested smaller, shorter classes, shortened practices, exclusion of mindful-walking and more time with peers. Post-mindfulness-based stress reduction booster sessions may be required, and objective and subjective reports of benefit would increase clinician confidence in mindfulness-based stress reduction. Discussion: Multiple sclerosis patients and clinicians know little about mindfulness-based stress reduction. Mismatched expectations are a barrier to participation, as is rigid application of mindfulness-based stress reduction in the context of disability. Course adaptations in response to patient needs would facilitate uptake and utilisation. Rendering access to mindfulness-based stress reduction rapid and flexible could facilitate implementation. Embedded outcome assessment is desirable

Using Audio/Visual Media to Increase the Sociological Imagination of an Adolescent Audience

Adolescence is a time of drastically increased sociological inequality. This thesis explores the possibility of using an educational sociology television show as a means to increase teen empowerment by developing their sociological imagination. After reviewing the causes of increased inequality during adolescence, I probe the link between sociology and empowerment by critiquing Mills’ conception of the sociological imagination. After finding his formulation incomplete, I use Bandura’s social cognitive theory to fill the gaps in the original framework and derive a new expanded sociological imagination focused on increasing efficacy. Efficacy is the social science construct most closely related to empowerment, and without an explicit focus on increasing it, highlighting the links between history and biography (Mills’ original concept) is very likely to cause resignation amongst substantial portions of students. The expanded sociological imagination’s focus on efficacy means that sociology instructors have to either provide mastery experiences or model for students how sociological knowledge can lead to better outcomes compared to a purely individualistic approach. I demonstrate how this can be done in a television program that follows entertainment-education best practices. I also use the expanded model to derive both a list of cognitive components that comprise sociological thinking and a skeletal storyline that can integrate sociology into a television program regardless of the amount of narrative. A case study that is attempting to integrate sociology and television is examined, followed by an exploration as to the type of research necessary to gauge the effectiveness of sociological edutainment programming. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how the E-SI might benefit undergraduate instruction of introductory sociology and its implications for ongoing efforts to bring sociology to high school

Social theory and development sociology at the crossroads

Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich zunächst mit der Beziehung zwischen allgemeiner soziologischer Theorie und der Entwicklungssoziologie. Im Anschluss daran wird die Entwicklung von der Soziologie hin zur Sozialtheorie behandelt. Im dritten Abschnitt wird die Frage der Aktualität der Paradigmen der Entwicklungssoziologie erläutert. Abschließend geht der Autor auf die Nachteile der Sozialtheorie und die Möglichkeiten der Entwicklungssoziologie ein. (ICD

Mobiliser autour d'un risque. Des lanceurs aux porteurs d'alerte

Cet article montre que deux grands modèles permettent de mieux saisir la contribution des lanceurs d'alerte aux transformations des dossiers. Le premier modèle est marqué par un décalage temporel important entre les premières alertes et controverses et la véritable prise en charge du dossier. Cela créé des écarts entre les mesures du risque – entendues ici au double sens de mesures scientifiques et de mesures administratives – et la mobilisation générale. La répétition des alertes est nécessaire pour que les dispositifs publics prennent durablement en charge le dossier. Le passage par des procès, des polémiques et des formes de protestation publiques spectaculaires est, dans ce cas de figure, assez inévitable, le degré de réversibilité diminuant alors même que les mécanismes d'imputation se mettent en place. Dès lors, le lanceur d'alerte se mue facilement en dénonciateur.Dans le second modèle, la prise en compte précoce des signaux rend compatibles les mobilisations et les mesures du risque, en s'appuyant sur les dispositifs institutionnels. On continue malgré tout, consultants en communication aidant, à parler de « crise » bien que par contraste avec la figure précédente il s'agisse plus simplement de prise en compte publique de dangers et de risques. Le degré de réversibilité du phénomène est souvent important, sans qu'il soit alors possible de prévoir, même approximativement, son extension à venir. La résorption rapide du phénomène, ou son absence de manifestation, peut conduire à une démobilisation, ce qui soutient la nécessité d'une vigilance vis-à-vis des actes administratifs et politiques. Les alertes prennent alors un autre sens, puisqu'elles tendent, dans cette configuration, à porter sur les procédures de prise en charge plus que sur les objets eux-mêmes, autrement dit à se constituer sous la forme d'alertes dérivées. Le lanceur d'alerte devient un porteur d'alerte, au sens où il accompagne jusqu'au bout le traitement des alarmes et des risques, au-delà des premiers épisodes mobilisateurs.Il ne faut pas considérer ces deux modèles comme assujettis à une époque : un modèle « ancien », caractéristique de la période des années 80, et un « nouveau » modèle qui serait aujourd'hui dominant. Ils constituent plutôt deux figures limites de la prise en charge des alertes, soumis à la critique du « il est déjà trop tard » pour la première, alors que la seconde, comme dans le cas de l'affaire Coca-Cola, soulève plutôt la question de la précocité ou de l'extension trop rapide de l'action des pouvoirs publics ou d'une médiatisation extrême. Entre ces deux modèles, définir « le bon moment pour agir » est essentiel mais suppose moins une réactivité à toute épreuve que la capacité à investir des dossiers et à maintenir une vigilance collective alors même que l'intérêt s'est déjà déplacé ailleurs

Autism Spectrum Disorder in Popular Media: Storied Reflections of Societal Views

This article explores how storied representations of characters with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are typified in a world that is increasingly influenced by popular media. Twenty commercially published children’s picture books, popular novels, mainstream television programs, and popular movies from 2006-2012 were selected using purposive, maximum variation sampling and analyzed through Krippendorff’s six-step approach to social content analysis. From this 20-unit sample, results show that television characters with ASD tend to be portrayed as intellectually stimulating geniuses who make us aspire to be like them; movies tend to show those with ASD as heroes, conquering seemingly impossible odds; novels tend to present ASD in a complex, authentic context of family and community, rife with everyday problems; picture books appear to be moving towards a clinical presentation of ASD. Common cross-categorical themes portray scientific, clinical, and/or savant-like traits that tend to glamourize challenges inherent to ASD

Putting music to trial : Consensus on key methodological challenges investigating music-based rehabilitation

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences.Major advances in music neuroscience have fueled a growing interest in music-based neurological rehabilitation among researchers and clinicians. Musical activities are excellently suited to be adapted for clinical practice because of their multisensory nature, their demands on cognitive, language, and motor functions, and music's ability to induce emotions and regulate mood. However, the overall quality of music-based rehabilitation research remains low to moderate for most populations and outcomes. In this consensus article, expert panelists who participated in the Neuroscience and Music VII conference in June 2021 address methodological challenges relevant to music-based rehabilitation research. The article aims to provide guidance on challenges related to treatment, outcomes, research designs, and implementation in music-based rehabilitation research. The article addresses how to define music-based rehabilitation, select appropriate control interventions and outcomes, incorporate technology, and consider individual differences, among other challenges. The article highlights the value of the framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions for music-based rehabilitation research and the need for stronger methodological rigor to allow the widespread implementation of music-based rehabilitation into regular clinical practice.Peer reviewe